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The series, which McNamara cofounded and curates, launches its fourth season February 5 with the premiere of Osso Bucco, starring character actor Mike Starr as a mobster enjoying one last meal in Chicago before a potentially fatal mission and Illeana Douglas, the waitress for whom he carries a torch. Directors Gary Taylor and Fred Blurton, both local advertising vets, and most of the cast will join McNamara at the screening and the cocktail receptions before and after. “We party it up. We make a night of it,” says McNamara. “I’d put our Tuesday nights on par with anybody’s else’s plans for Friday night.”
McNamara is a slick, affable host. He claims he honed his skills in his two years emceeing the national Coors Light Maxim Girls Search. “I get frustrated when I see some of these other film festivals,” he says. “They think because they’re indie they don’t have to worry about dressing themselves. If they’re leading a Q and A, they think they have to be somber and morose. If you’re doing something that you want other people to care about, you’ve got to give it some personality.”
McNamara started talking up the event to friends and fellow actors and then writing press releases and promoting it to local radio stations. Soon he was announcing movies from backstage “to smooth out the transitions between the films.” Eventually he was made the evening’s emcee.
McNamara and Kwielford steadily built their audience, giving away a lot of tickets, networking at other film events, and clamoring for media attention. In the festival’s early days, they’d fill only half the theater’s 270 seats; now crowds are overflowing. There’s talk of expanding to two or three of the Landmark’s theaters to accommodate the growth.
Tue 2/5, opening reception at 6 PM, screening at 7:30 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre, 2828 N. Clark, 312-642-4222 (MIFF), midwestfilm.com, $10. Afterparty at Cousin’s, 2833 N. Broadway, 773-880-0063, from 9:30 PM.
